On Jan 15, 3:45*pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
03:44:34 on Thu, 15 Jan 2009, remarked:

Heathrow is far from being essential and isn't overloaded anyway.

It's severely overloaded, and "essential" for UK plc's international
business ambitions.

Is it really? Please name all the companies deserting the UK because
their CEOs have to wait around a bit at Heathrow. In fact, just one
will do. It seems the pro camp continually switches its argument
between the importance of transit traffic (a blinkered obsession with
competition with Frankfurt and Schiphol) and the collapse of UK
business if the runway doesn't happen.

As for the growth forecasts, a better example of a self-fulfilling
prophecy is hard to imagine now, with no pricing strategy to lock-in
the benefits, such as they are, of additional capacity.

Then there's the small issue of the net present value of carbon
emissions. If the 2003 White Paper's ambitions are realised in full,
the cost will be minus £18bn, excluding additional radiative forcing
[1]. Wonderful for UK Plc, coming on top of the perverse subsidies for
aviation resulting from a lack of taxation on fuel and tickets.

Wasn't the Climate Change Act enacted last year too? Which sectors are
expected to make cuts of 80% to allow aviation's to increase?

Bloody hell, our only hope is the Tories getting in and sticking to
their pledges.

[1] Environmental Audit Committee (2003): Budget 2003 and Aviation.